BALLADE ( DOUBLE REFRAIN ) OF MIDSUMMER DAYS AND NIGHTS — To W. H.

With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams

The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,

And the winds are one with the clouds and beams -

Midsummer days! Midsummer days!

The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,

While the West from a rapture of sunset rights,

Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise -

Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!

The wood's green heart is a nest of dreams,

The lush grass thickens and springs and sways,

The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams -

Midsummer days! Midsummer days!

In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways,

All secret shadows and mystic lights,

Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze -

Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!

There's a music of bells from the trampling teams,

Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze,

The rich, ripe rose as with incense steams -

Midsummer days! Midsummer days!

A soul from the honeysuckle strays,

And the nightingale as from prophet heights

Sings to the Earth of her million Mays -

Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!